There’s A Meme: “Sh!t My Grand-Dad Says…” This Is No Farce, Though.

December 21, 2022December 21, 2022 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Just about eight hours ago, in his own social media platform, Tangerine published / wrote this:

“…‘The FBI and Twitter COLLUDED to elect Joe Biden.’ [Headline by Jesse Watters]. In other words, the 2020 Presidential Election was RIGGED & STOLEN. It all began a long time ago, they SPIED on my campaign, and tried to “RIGG” [sic] the 2016 Election, but failed. Remember, our government is doing this, not a person or party. What should be done about such a terrible thing, or should we let someone who was elected by cheating and fraud stay in office and continue to destroy our Country?….”

I suppose the only response ought to be… sympathy. He is plainly… completely… demented.

“Twitter and the FBI colluded…” Hilarious. Hey, Hinderaker — come git your boy.

Out.

Hinderaker Is Back To Arguing The Frothy Wing Of The GOP Should Buy Out All US Women’s Magazines…

December 21, 2022December 21, 2022 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

This, my friends, is proof that Hinderaker knows… they’ve lost the war.

Likely for good.

As a side car to the old “women’s mags” / Glenn Harlan Reynolds’ (Tenn. law prof’s.) saw, here — he also argues that the Koch family should buy all Spanish language radio stations. Uh-huh.

What John doesn’t admit… is that the hard right GOP mantras… have now utterly… failed to persuade a large majority of the populace in the US — at least, they have failed to connect with humans who’ve correctly perceived the GOP sneering at them, as a group.

And, as a result — his ilk will now lose election after election, well into the 21^st Century, except perhaps for very local — ruby red ones.

Flawless.

Hey Johnson, How was NY Post “Suppressed”!?

December 21, 2022December 21, 2022 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

As a footnote, having already promised to fall silent on how manifestly silly Scott Johnson’s have been on the Twitter / 2020 kerfuffle… I need to mention one more thing, about it.

Scott is so far down the rabbit hole, he wrote this facially-preposterous opening sentence, this morning:

“…I am particularly interested on the reverberations of the Twitter Files in the pages of the New York Post, whose reporting on the Biden family corruption was suppressed in the run-up to the 2020 presidential election…“

Seriously?

I read every story Scott. Whom, exactly, “suppressed” a company that spills about three tons of red and black ink every morning on NYC street corners?! Who?

Oh — right!

You mean… a for profit business that decided not to “syndicate” some of the NY Post’s more outlandish claims, into its advertiser reliant social media offering.

That’s not in any sense of the word — a suppression. Poppycock!

Many US newspapers don’t — and do — occasionally see other media outlets pick up, original stories… and re-run them.

The fact that Scott has defined words to mean only what HE says they mean… pretty much makes his breathless, pearl clutching retelling…

H I L A R I O U S.

Unintentionally so, though, to be sure.

Out.

Hinderaker Forgets That Trump Touted The DJIA, When It Measures Only The Top 1% Wealthiest’s Well-Being, In The US…

December 20, 2022December 20, 2022 ~ condor ~ 1 Comment

So — in a display of seriously advancing… senility, tonight Hinderaker whines that government labor statistics… get (properly, and normally) adjusted, from time to time. They represent about 200 million people, afterall. It has happened dozens of times, under Bush 41 and 43 — and a few times under Tangerine. [Even Saint Ronnie saw it occur on his watch.]

But to hear John tell it, this is all a vast, but nearly instantaneous “leftists’” plot — he seems to claim we control all federal governmental agencies… (only in the doddering old fool’s addled mind, that is).

Indeed, I wish to take his in another direction: John evinces an even more salient bit of myopia here (as ever). He cheered Tangerine’s recitation of every new Dow high water mark, claiming “the Trump economy” was going gang-busters.

But in fact, only the top 1 per cent or so ever feel any real tangible benefit from a rising stock market. [Fewer than 10 per cent of Americans own significant amounts of stock, at all.]

And As of 2018, the top 1% of US households owned 58% of all stock market wealth.

The US economy lost 2.9 million jobs by Trump’s last year. The unemployment rate increased by 1.6 percentage points to 6.3 per cent by the end of his term. The international trade deficit Trump promised to reduce went up. The U.S. trade deficit in goods and services in 2020 was the highest since 2008 and increased 40.5% from 2016. The number of people lacking health insurance rose by 3 million. The federal debt held by the public went up by over 33 per cent, from $14.4 trillion to $21.6 trillion.

So — when measuring by almost any real lower-to-middle US class metric, Trump’s economy was… a disaster.

John should really sit down and shut up.

[U] It Would Seem The Insight Barsoomian Lander Has Reached “End of Mission” Status. No Response — To Any Ping.

December 20, 2022December 21, 2022 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Well, for almost five long years, we have enjoyed following the ups and downs of this mission, on Mars.

We enjoyed the science puzzler, of figuring out why the hammer/drill was just bouncing about (rather than making progress, at drill depths), in the soft slushy “mosh pit” of the regolith. We sat slack-jawed, at the wonder of watching Mars-quakes reverberate around the smaller globe there… and ultimately, meet its end — as micro-layers of copper-hued dust settled year after year on it, occluding its solar panels, and thus draining its power source. Here is JPL on it all:

…As of Nov. 29, 2022, InSight was generating an average between 290 watt-hours of energy per Martian day, or sol. The tau, or level of dust cover in the atmosphere, was estimated at .95 (typical tau levels outside of dust season range from 0.6-0.7)….

As of Dec. 12, 2022, InSight was generating an average of ~285 watt-hours of energy per Martian day, or sol. The tau, or level of dust cover in the atmosphere, was estimated at .96 (typical tau levels outside of dust season range from 0.6-0.7)….

On Dec. 18, 2022, NASA’s InSight did not respond to communications from Earth. The lander’s power has been declining for months, as expected, and it’s assumed InSight may have reached its end of operations. It’s unknown what prompted the change in its energy; the last time the mission contacted the spacecraft was on Dec. 15, 2022. The team members at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Southern California were unable to contact the lander after two consecutive attempts, leading them to conclude the spacecraft’s solar-powered batteries have run out of energy — a state engineers refer to as “dead bus”….

The mission will continue to try and contact InSight….

It was a fine mission, overall — with great new data — scads of it, in fact — on Marsquakes. It matters little that the “mining” portion of the mission mistook harder rock for… a “Dippin’ Dots” sort of ice cream pebbles regolith, and thus could not gain traction — as in a ball pit, at McD’s of yester-year. The mission was a full on, bangin’ success! Here’s to a fine new year… onward, into the warm afternoon mountain bike rides. Then to Sky Harbor to get more scattered family collected into the copper colored Adobe-clad homes we keep down here…. Smile. It is almost… celebration time!

नमस्ते

Yes John — Indicting A Former President Is… A Bleak Day. But Not For The Reasons You Imagine.

December 19, 2022December 19, 2022 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Hinderaker (along with Steve Hayward) has lately been offering various “last stand” exhortations to the faithful frothy hard right GOP. Both of them, all but acknowledging that 2024 is a lost cause, already.

The upshot is that they think THEY are saving our way of life (albeit not much before 2028 or so)… from some “liberal” thing or another (mostly, peoples’ rights to love whom they love, I think).

But tonight in particular, John feels it will be a bleak occasion for the US, to see the Tangerine blowhard indicted, tried and convicted.

He said it in the context of the J6 Committee’s findings today — but for me, it will indeed be a bleak day, when Mr. Jack Smith presides over an unsealed speaking indictment, alleging multiple felonies — including ones implicating national security, a few months from now.

It will be bleak… because Hinderaker, Johnson and Hayward were openly complicit it forcing this day. They had a duty to help end it, and chose instead to champion Trump’s lunatic theories, advised against using the courts in a sensible manner, and then urged many NOT to respect the courts’ uniform dismissals of Tangerine’s insanity.

That is how we got to this sad day: they (and lots of other supposedly educated lawyers) attacked the (non-existent) “political motivation” of judges and judicial panels, all finding against an avowed insurrectionist. They cheered people who would kidnap the sitting Governor of Michigan — and claimed if the evidence ultimately supported convictions, it would be due to “false flag” operations run by the FBI. [There have been J6 and Michigan convictions now, by the dozens. And not one post from these losers — urging respect for the rule of criminal laws.]

Yes… it will be a bleak day. A bleak day because these codgers, each of whom dodged service in Vietnam, btw — knew full-well Trump’s attacks were baseless — and that he was willfully scheming to, and wantonly actually violating dozens of felony statutes… yet each of them egged him on.

Their collective shame should ring in eternity — along with Trump’s — as traitors to the ideals of this fine (if incomplete, and occasionally flaw-prone) nation.

O U T.

While The Parties Meet Privately To Hammer Out A Compromise — The Next Lanham Act Merck v. Merck Court Date Is February 10, 2023…

December 19, 2022 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

Updated 12.19.2022 — and bumped:

The discussions will continue in private, with next court settlement conference (and potentially public results) in February 2023, thus:

…The next settlement conference in this matter will take place before the Undersigned on February 10, 2023, beginning at 10:00 a.m. EST. To accommodate the schedules of counsel and Mr. Kolle, the conference will proceed via Zoom. The Court will provide counsel the Zoom link. On or before February 3, 2023, lead counsel will provide Deputy Clerk Jacquetta Baker with a list of all conference participants and their e-mail addresses. Any supplemental settlement memoranda shall be submitted by February 3, 2023, to [redacted] @ njd [dot] uscourts.gov. If the conference requires a second day, the Court will discuss scheduling with counsel and the parties at the close of the February 10th session. So Ordered by Magistrate Judge Michael A. Hammer on 12/19/2022. (Hammer, Michael)….

End, updated portion.

This one may well be nearing the finish line, over a decade on (or… a century, depending on how you count, from the end of World War I).

Of course there are lots of other companion cases like it, pending in courtrooms dotting the globe… but perhaps, just perhaps — here at near Christmas 2022 — this will be a truly global settlement. We can only hope — and specifically, this was filed overnight, on a Friday night in Newark:

…December 9, 2022

Dear Judge Hammer:

We, along with Sidley Austin, represent Plaintiffs Merck & Co., Inc. and Merck Sharp & Dohme Corp. in this matter. With the consent of Blank Rome LLP and Debevoise & Plimpton LLP, counsel for Defendant Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, we are writing with an update as requested by the Court’s Text Order of December 1, 2022 (D.E. 209).

The parties are continuing their discussions and therefore respectfully request a short extension to Monday, December 12, to provide a further update to Your Honor.

We appreciate the Court’s attention to this matter….

/s/ [for] McCarter & English

Getting excited for the return of my kiddos… out into the steel and glass canyons, and the half-light reflected there, from the emerging winter’s gloaming… to see “The Menu” — smiling. Ever, smiling.

नमस्ते

At Well-Before-Christmas — The Ugandan (Elected) President Has “Jumped” Long-Approved WHO Guidelines, For Declaring Ebola Outbreak… Arrested.

December 18, 2022December 18, 2022 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

I would expect U Minn’s CIDRAP — as well as WHO’s Ebola Situation Reporting may have more on this tomorrow — once back at work on Monday.

And, as ever, I will hope for the very best here — that no new cases emerge, between now and the latest 42 day clock running out. By my hand count, the earliest real science might declare an all clear would be December 26, 2022.

[Candidly, I worry a bit that Uganda’s health minister has been ordered not to disclose any new patient cases.] In any event, the government there has (as of yesterday local time) now lifted all travel and gathering restrictions in all districts previously under lock-down orders. This in turn means there will be lots of holiday travel and festivities in restaurants, and bars.

As I say, I will hope for the best — but this seems mostly a political calculation (by an official facing elections) — not a purely-science based one. Here’s Reuters on it:

…Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni lifted all Ebola-related movement restrictions on Saturday, saying the East African country had made progress in curbing the deadly disease.

[Ed. nota bene — “progress” is a standard well-short of the actual scientific evidence-derived marker.]

Museveni rescinded restrictions on the disease’s epicentre in the district of Mubende, which logged 66 cases and 29 deaths, and in the Kassanda region with 49 cases and 21 deaths.

“Currently, there is no transmission, no contact under follow-up, no patients in the isolation facilities, and we are progressing well with the count down,” Museveni said in a statement….

Let us hope that epidemic biology doesn’t do what it is well-known to do: mutate — evolve and rise again. Let us hope, here at near Christmas. Dammit.

नमस्ते

Hey! Steve Hayward! Like Tangerine — No One Takes YOU Seriously, Any More… Either.

December 18, 2022December 18, 2022 ~ condor ~ Leave a comment

It is more than a little revealing, that Hayward (who claims to be a sophisticate in the realm of political thought) thinks postulating that Trump might have meant/intended his NFT “printer go brrr” issuance was, in fact… a stunt… is proof of anything remotely positive, about him or the GOP.

Again, this idea that he might have pocketed as much as $5 million from deranged idiots, by issuing over five times the number of NFTs he said, in his written offer, he would cap them at (~50,000 — instead of 10,000), and that he may be trading in them, even now… strikes me as only slightly below SBF level fraud (that would be old fashioned ’34 Act securities fraud by market manipulation, under the seminal Howey Supremes’ decision). But truly, Steve, I don’t care if you… praise it.

[It is on brand for Powerline as well, to do so. Hey, maybe Powerline could raise (I don’t know…) around $10,000 — by running its own NFT scam, Steve. Kewl.]

At bottom, the main bit of lunacy here is that Steve praises fleecing Trump’s his own frothy right morons, to at least marginally improve Tangerine’s chances at a 2024 GOP nomination — while (since cash is not — as Steve admits — an unlimited commodity inside GOP donors’ circles, any longer!) reducing the cash DeSantis may be able to raise… cannot be good for the future of any Republicans, in any way.